


Cassiopeia

by Lisztful



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: M/M, Mabinogion, Merlin - Freeform, Merlin/Arthur - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-11-18
Updated: 2009-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 08:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisztful/pseuds/Lisztful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A strange bard spends an evening at Camelot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cassiopeia

One unseasonably warm night in early February, a bard comes to Camelot.

He's a slender, elfin creature, a harp belted over his narrow back, and hair the color of reeds that cascades down his shoulders, constrained by neither thong nor cap. Merlin thinks that Uther won't approve of him, but in the winter, when the castle is blanketed over with snow, entertainment is highly valued, and Uther declares a celebration.

The king plies the strange bard with mulled wine and fat ducks roasted over the hearth on a spit, and the last of the summer's harvest of late summer vegetables and plump apples, alongside loaves of fresh, hot bread. Once everything has been laid out in a sea of colors and aromas, he orders that the servants come out and join in the merriment.

Merlin sits by Arthur's knee, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs in his wake as he lifts his trencher for Arthur to place on it bits of quince and salt pork and succulent fowl.

Despite today's relative warmth, the fires are blazing, and for once Merlin feels the chill of the winter seep out of his bones, as his cheeks go rosy with wine and heat radiates off Arthur as he laughs by Merlin's side.

Arthur is relaxed, pliant, slouched into his seat with somewhat less than his usual regal authority. His face is creased with an open, contented smile, a brief respite from his frequent and full laughter. He has a way of drawing forward when someone says something particularly engaging, of aiming upward with his abdomen and pressing forward on the balls of his toes. As the evening continues on, his leg drifts more and more outward, as his gestures become more expansive and his laughs still more hearty. His tongue is made sweet and extravagant, plied as it has been with so much wine.

Merlin, too, is dizzy with drink, and the lights and sounds and his full belly make him hazy with contentment. He wavers for a long moment, before curling up against Arthur's side and placing his head upon the prince's thigh.

Somewhere in the depths of his brain, he's aware that this isn't the most servant-ly of behaviors, but everyone's suffering from impropriety tonight, and even Uther is too deep in his cups to care. As for Arthur, he just chuckles, a sound that resonates all the way down to where Merlin's ear is pressed into the long line of muscle beneath its encasement of finely woven linen. After a moment, his hand comes to rest upon Merlin's hair, and as his appetite wanes and his sips of wine slow, he carefully, gently begins to card his fingers through Merlin's hair.

After everyone has finished eating, Uther calls for the bard, and he stands, thronged by the younger servants, they who stir the cauldrons in the kitchen, muck the stalls, and beat the linens against rocks in the river, even on days when it's mostly frozen solid. Merlin has caught a word or two of the bard's conversation, all fantastic tales that made the children gasp and shriek and giggle, and it's clear that he's made allies of all of them.

The crowd is quiet at first, sated and sluggish, but Uther lifts his chin in that way he has of being so noble and clear, despite his own lethargy, and asks, "What shall we call you, bard?"

The bard smiles, a small, secret curve of the lip, and says, "Gwion will do nicely," and with that he unstraps his harp from about his shoulders and begins to play.

Gwion sings in the old tongue, Cymry. Merlin understands it, at times, though not always. In the outlying villages, parents still remember old prayers, things to mutter for protection, or in penance, though they rarely remember the language itself, or the true meaning of these scattered bits. Gwion does understand it, though, and Merlin relishes the way the thick, guttural sounds well out of him, stopped off by crisp rolls of the tongue, only to begin all over again.

He calls forth a sound from his harp, too, that feels not quite human, not quite natural. Everyone is silent for the first few moments, then, slowly, they realize how very invigorating the whole thing is, and they stand, beginning with the young ones, and soon they've all begun to dance.

The dancing continues for hours, everyone all mixed in together and laughing, laughing, endlessly laughing. Uther performs a jig with a blushing chambermaid, Sir Bedivere tosses Gwen in the air and twirls her with her feet still caught off the ground, and Morgana and Cook show each other their stockings.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, Arthur pushes through everyone in his bossy way, and offers Merlin his hand. He takes it, and Arthur's hand is calloused and strong around his, his smooth, confident clasp so different from what one might expect of a swordsman. He pulls Merlin directly in front of him, and Merlin's laugh rings out over the crowd as Arthur sets a lively pace.

Everyone around them is dancing with the same abandon, Gwion's melodies not being fit for the more traditional court dances. These are songs of the wild lands, and even the noblest of lords does not treat them as anything more civilized. Gwion's eyes might, to those who pass a slow eye over him as he plays, appear, almost, to flicker almost golden in the soft, smoky light, but all are too concerned with their own merriment to notice anything untoward.

Vespers has long gone, and the bells have even tolled out solemn Compline to no effect, when Gwion slows, takes a long, grateful swallow of wine, and raises his eyes to the king.

"I have but a small request, my lord," He says lightly, and his voice is something akin to the plucking of harp strings.

Uther can scarcely stand straight, but Sir Peredur, who rarely partakes of libations, takes hold of him by the shoulders, and Sir Cadog on his other side, and he says, "I am generous tonight, bard. Ask, and you shall have it."

"My lord is most gracious," Gwion says, and his smile skirts the edge of gently teasing. "All I wish is to play for you a song that will not lend it self so easily to the dancing. A moment for a story, a moment for us all to find our breath, that is my request."

Uther smiles beneficently and waves a hand that nearly topples him. The knights right him, and the children come forward to sit at Gwion's knees.

Most of the adults, and the children who wish to be more mature, stay standing, cradled in the arms of their dance partners. Arthur guides Merlin slowly back and forth, swaying in place, and Merlin burrows a little into the broad, warm plane of his chest.

There is a small silence, a collective settling in, then Gwion begins to sing. His voice barely sounds at all, at first, just the faintest whisper of a breath.

"Seithenhin," he begins, the ghost of a word.

" stand thou forth,  
And behold the billowy rows;  
The sea has covered the plain of Gwydneu."

Merlin feels suddenly colder, as the bard's voice draws slowly deeper and fuller, like the skin of a set of Pictish skin bagpipes, drawing in air for the drone.

Gwion continues, and he plucks a long stray note then, and then another, and Merlin sees a great hill fort, set behind a wall of stone, and beyond it, the sea pressing ever, always inward.

He sees a celebration, in the smoky fort, the free flow of mead and ribaldry, and a thin, elfin bard pursing his lips thinly as the men, one by one, fall forward and asleep.

He sees Gwion try to wake them, looking upward and out at the water, and feels the wind and the rain gusting through the hide covering over the doorway, and looks up to make sure that Arthur is seeing all of this too, and by the distant, sad look in his eye, he is. Gwion is singing more loudly, now, and plucking his strings so hard that Merlin fears they might snap. His voice has gone bitter and almost terrifying, as he cries,

"A great cry from the roaring sea arises above the summit of the rampart,  
To-day, even, does the supplication come!"

Gwion's face has gone terribly, radiantly brilliant.

"A cry from the roaring sea overpowers me this night,  
And it is not easy to relieve me."

Merlin sees the bard stop at the sea wall, shout something unintelligible into the wind, then run, harp slung over his back.

"A cry from the roaring sea  
Impels me from my resting-place this night," rasps Gwion, and suddenly Merlin is once more aware of himself, standing in the great hall, safe from floods and crumbling sea walls, and now Gwion's voice has cooled to a soft, mellow pitch, as he finishes his song.

"The grave of Seithenhin the weak-minded  
Between Caer Cenedir and the shore  
Of the great sea and Cinran."

There is a vast silence, before all those present in the great hall seem to come back to themselves. After that, there is applause, praising of the bard, but there is something a bit cautious and confused about it.

Uther doesn't speak for a long time, but when he finally does, he asks, in a voice that sounds utterly broken, "Who are you? What is your land?"

Gwion laughs, a rich, dark sound, and bows his head before replying. "The north, sire, where I was once raised by Ceridwen, then again by noble Elphin. But," he adds more softly, "I've traveled far, and for a great many years."

After this, Gwion cedes the floor to his servant friends, and they produce a hurdy-gurdy and a rough-hewn psaltery, and somehow manage a very lively reel.

The other people of the hall are slow to respond, still bewildered, but they begin to dance again, soon enough.

Arthur takes a moment longer to respond, and when he does finally straighten and remove his arms from about Merlin's ribs, he feels cold and bereft. Then, suddenly, Arthur is animated once more, and he urges Merlin through the crowd and out into the hall, where he finds a sleepy child whose head is swaying drowsily to the music. He kneels before her, whispers something in her ear and presses a rather generous coin into her palm, and the child turns bright red, gives a whoop of joy, and drags Arthur off by the hand.

Just as Merlin is trying to decide whether or not he's been dismissed, Arthur returns, bearing an armload of furs.

"Come on then," he says, and his voice is brilliant and pierces Merlin right through, and they slip out of the castle and through the courtyard and walk around the back of the castle, where everything is dark and empty, and lay out on a deserted patch of grass where they could almost be the only people awake in the world.

They are quiet together, nestled into the mound of furs. Merlin stares up at the stars, and suddenly he's overcome with the vastness of it all, the bits of light all above him, and the feeling that he could almost touch it all, if he could just find the right spell.

He hears footsteps, then, brushing over the dewy grass. It's the bard, and he stands before them and his hair glows like flax in the starlight.

"I think I shall have to move on," he says, and offers them a little, secretive smile.

"Must you?" says Arthur. "My father will be disappointed."

"Mmm," says the bard. "Uther. I knew a man like that, once."

He looks up at the sky, considering, then kneels at their ankles.

"The Romans had names for them, you know." He's still looking upward.

Arthur shifts comfortably, knocking shoulders with Merlin. "No, tell us."

Gwion points, and his fingers are slender and pale. "There," he says, and maps out a group of stars. "That's a woman. She was quite vain, bragged of her beauty often. She was put up there in the sky, they say, as a punishment for her constant preening. Now we all look at her upside down."

He leans back on his haunches.

"Sounds like you," Merlin says to Arthur, "Always talking about your hair."

Arthur is uncharacteristically serene, and just draws a lazy arm about Merlin's shoulders.

"Who are you really?" he asks Gwion, and the bard laughs his plucked string laugh, and once again, he recites.

"Primary chief bard am I to Elphin,  
And my original country is the region of the summer stars;  
Idno and Heinin called me Merddin,  
At length every king will call me �" well." He laughs again. "Something else."

He stands, looks consideringly at the two of them.

"You'll be great, you know," he says, and his voice is warm. "I'll be glad to have met you, later."

His tone doesn't brook responding, and in a heartbeat he's waved an arm at them and turned away. In the span of another breath, he's already at least a hundred paces away, and the light catches on the strings of the harp that rests on his back.

Merlin turns toward Arthur, then, and reaches out to brush his fingers across Arthur's brow.

"I would put you in the sky, you know," he says softly, and Arthur's skin goes warm with his blush.

"You'd trap me there, Merlin? I thought better of you."

Merlin laughs, and shifts closer, almost whispering. "No, not to trap. Sometimes I think you're so brilliant you could light the whole world. Sometimes it's so beautiful that it hurts."

He draws a little closer. "Sometimes you blind me."

Arthur is quiet, his lips parted and eyes raised as Merlin leans up on his elbows, above him.

They stay there like that for a moment, and Arthur's eyes are brighter than all the stars when he finally says, against Merlin's lips, "You're a little bit magical, aren't you, Merlin?" and kisses him until they don't need to say anything else aloud.

And Merlin knows that it's enough, now, and they'll never have to say any more words at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Text of the poems taken from Seithenhin, Black Book of Carmarthen XXXVIII and the Hanes Taliesin, usually seen as an addition to the Mabinogion. Also, some inspiration drawn from the Joanna Newsom song, Cassiopeia.


End file.
